No One to Call His Own
by Dash Nolan
Summary: Zero is trapped once again in a fierce nightmare, haunted by his own design, only to find comfort in the last place he would ever look: right in front of him. [[Shounen-Ai]]


The hiss of poorly-maintained hydraulics shot from between the cracks of the aged steel doorframe. A chain of tiny motors driving each other, whirring in perfect harmony to allow the wide-based red leg to make its next move. Metal-on-metal contact with each step, yet compact supressors surrounding the rim of the leg's armor brought the sound of each contact to a barely-audible tap.

By all apperances he was a young man, maybe early-twenties, covered in the oddest bright-red armor. Sprouting out the back of his semi-horned helmet were three-and-a-half feet of blonde hair, perfectly maintained despite their constant abuse. Protruding precariously from a small white back pannel was a yellow rod, about eight inches in lengh, that ended in a red spike. He was adorned with three crystals nearly clear as water: two upon his chest and one about an inch above the bridge of his nose.

His name was Zero, and his life had been surrounded by death.

His sole purpose of creation had been to bring chaos to the peaceful family of Dr. Thomas Light. Murder. Death. Kill. A purpose with no completion; the means to no end. Since then he had proclaimed himself a guardian. Yet here he was: years later and still driving his blade through body-after-body. Each kill was easily justifiable, but that didn't mean Zero would forgive himself for tearing the life out of a fellow being. Often times he would wonder whether it was worse to be gone than to carry the weight of thousands dead upon one's shoulders.

Zero surrendered himself to gravity and fell into what little comfort the three-inch-thick matress could provide. He had been offered a bunk that any other ceature would die for countless times, but each time Zero forced himself to refuse the offer, staying true to the rest of his team. He had been attempting to reinforce his belief that he was just another soldier, but all it did was provide the men with another reason to admire him.

"Heh," Zero whispered, "They want my life? They can have it."

Ever since Iris, a female reploid who he had been forced to kill when they took different sides in one of the most recent battles, passed on, Zero had fallen to the belief that he'd never find someone to call his own. He had befriended many a female Maverick Hunter over the past few years, and everytime they would become close, she would be lost to a Maverick engagement, or worse, become Maverick herself.

"This is selfish," Zero mubled in the darkness of his quarters. "There are Reploids dying by the thousands out there, cities being leveled by Maverick suicide bombers, and I'm worried about finding a date to the prom."

The Hunter rolled over on the bunk, turning away from the rest of the room and speaking directly to the wall.

"Although... the feel of barriumite mesh armor against your own does so much for the spirit..."

Zero forced a satirical laugh.

"The only reploid around here that seems like any possiblity at this point seems to be X."

The red warrior was about to laugh a little more naturally, but he stopped mid-breath. His last comment hadn't come out right. In fact, it had come out a bit too sincere for Zero's taste. His mind wandered to the history of his friendship with the blue reploid, a nostalgic glint in his eyes. Almost every single battle Zero had participated in, X had been either right beside him or on a different battlefield sharing Zero's objective. They were bonded by a tie that no other two reploids could speak of, for they were the originals. Having woken up from cryostasis, the two had wasted no time finding each other.

"Urgh, I'll never fall into rest-cycle like this."

Zero slid so that his back was against the wall of steel behind him and reached over, pressing a panel that activated a glowrod mounted horizontally near the bunk. The rod's muted light reached out, caught by both Zero and various ruffles in the bunk's cloth cover, and cast amorphous shadows across the far wall.

"I'd read something if I owned a book that I hadn't already gone through at least three times."

Zero glanced towards the floor-to-cieling bookshelf planted against the wall next to his door, its shelves crowed with dust-covered copies of Inferno, Atlas Shrugged, Doctor Zhivago, Slaughterhouse-Five, and countless other "classics" written by a species that was slowly losing its grasp on the world. Their armor, weaponry, transportation, and over-all intelligence were inferior by leaps-and-bounds to those of Reploids, but their grasp of the arts was something that Zero's kind could never achieve.

A small buzz emitted from a speaker next to Zero's door, followed by a familiar voice.

"Hey Zero, it's me. May I come in?"

The red warrior immediately recognized X's kind voice and pressed upon a small button next to the bed light's switch. The slab of steel nearly soundlessly slid aside, the sudden contrast of light changing X into a dark silhouette. The blue reploid stood in the doorway, studying the darkness of the room and then Zero, laying under the weak light of the bed's glowrod. X's face shone concern, as Zero knew it would.

"Zero, is something the ma-"

"I'm fine," Zero cut in, not wanting to go through the exercise of convincing X that nothing was wrong, despite how false it may be.

X released a sigh, having caught the tension in Zero's voice, and pulled out the chair under the desk. He placed it diagonally next to the bed, facing the red warrior, and fell onto it. Zero rolled his eyes, knowing that he couldn't win this battle.

"Seriously Zero, what's wrong?" X asked, leaning forward as he placed his elbows upon his knees.

Zero raised his hand and made a waving motion, attemtping to brush away X's worry.

"It's nothing of importance, X. You must have more urgent things to concern yourself with than this."

The blue reploid reached out and placed his palm upon Zero's knee armor, gently grasping it.

"Unless it were a full-blown Maverick attack, I'd ignore it anyway. Come on, just tell me what's bothering you."

Zero exhaled, giving in to his friend's pleas.

"Do you ever get... lonely here at the base?"

X smiled softly, nodding in understnading.

"Sure. Though it's not like us Hunters ever have much time to go out and look for that special someone."

Zero nodded, smiling. X was reminding him of one of the few facts of his existance he couldn't stand, and yet when it came from his blue partner, it was as if it was nothing but an easily-buffed scratch on a Ride Armor.

"Right as usual, X."

X chuckled, giving Zero's knee a reaffirming squeeze.

"You'll find someone Zero. Your looks, your hair, and your voice could snag about anyone you wanted on this base. Heck, anywhere for that matter."

Zero suppressed a smirk, trying this hardest to play the modesty card.

"But I don't want anyone. I want _the_ one. The one I could tell anything to, and who, if I needed it, I could place my life in the hands of. Someone who..."

The warrior trailed off mid-sentence, realizing with surprise that he had just decribed the Reploid sitting beside him. X easily caught his friend's shock and scooted forward.

"Something the matter, Zero?"

The red warrior shook his head, forcing himself to chuckle.

"No, I just realized that I was describing... you."

X smiled softly, knowing that if he had a human circulatory system, his face would be turning a deep red at that moment. While desperately searching for a suitable response, a red light appeared in the top right corner or X's vision. The blue reploid tapped his right audio receptor and his commander's voice filled his head.

_"X, this is Signas. I've got a few rookies here who started a brawl in the north wing and was wondering if you could come down and talk to them."_

X chuckled lightly, knowing exactly who the two were that Signas spoke of.

"I'll be down there in a little bit. X out."

He then turned his attention back to Zero, smiling apologetically.

"That was Signas. Apparently a couple of the newbies got into a fight in the north wing, and he wants me down there to calm them down."

Zero nodded, understanding Signas' want to have X there, considering the commander's apparent lack of skill when dealing with insubordinate rookies.

"Well, if you're heading off, I think I'll try to get some rest."

"Sounds like a plan. Goodnight, Zero."

Zero roughly slid back under the covers and, grasping them, rolled onto his side. He knew full well that he wouldn't be hitting rest cycle any time soon, but he decided to let his gears rest anyway. While Zero was still rather depressed, his conversation with X had certainly lifted a good portion of the burden. A smile crossed Zero's face, the red warrior remembering all the times X's words had been like a tall glass of water on a scorching day. He admitted that there was certainly a bond between them, a tie that had been permanently knotted the second Zero had thrown himself atop Vile's mechanical beast and overloaded his power core, there-by destroying both himself and the only weapon the purple mercenary had to defeat X with.

"And I'd do it again in a heartbeat," Zero whispered, the last barriers between him and sleep finally broken.

The world around him remained the same, and yet it was somewhere else. Everything was blurry,

as if taken straight out of an old oil painting. Zero slid his legs out from beneath the cover and rose

from his pillow, turning his attention to the silhouetted figure leaning against his bookshelf. From the

slight hunch and audible breathing, Zero could tell the man was old. His only hair came in the form

of two fierce spikes jutting out horizontally from just above either ear. He spoke as if he had once

had a commanding voice, but had lost it to the times.

_"Zero, my son, why haven't you finished off Thomas' line yet? Why is that abomination still walking my Earth?"_

Zero figured that the man meant Thomas Light, X's creator. The warrior had encountered this dream figure before, but almost every time, he'd been brought to his knees by a sudden pain filling his head. This time it would be different.

"I haven't finished him off... I haven't because I don't plan to! I don't care if you wanted a murderer, because what you got was me, and that's something you're going to have to get over you sick bastard!"

The shadow man was obviously caught off-guard by Zero's sudden courage, but he stood his ground.

_"Don't speak to your creator like that you ungreatful child. You and I both know that every time you kill one of those infected robots, a spark goes off inside you. Creating a bloodbath in a melee is the greatest pleasure you've ever felt. I would know; I programmed you that way. Don't fight who you are, Zero. Accept it, embrace it, allow it to strengthen you! Go accept your destiny!"_

Zero rose from his bunk, slowly stepping towards, and then past the dark man. He stopped at the doorway and spoke, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"My destiny..."

The figure of shadow behind him smiled, pleased with himself over his creation accepting its fate. However, it was not to be.

"...is whatever _I _make it!"

Letting loose a battle cry that he never knew he was capable of, Zero quickly withdrew his beam sabre's handle from the charger behind his shoulder and activated its blade. A beam of golden light extended from the handle. Zero tighly grasped the sabre with both hands and drove it straight through the waist of the old man, cutting clean through him. The creature of darkness screamed as more, brighter threads of light began to pierce his body in every direction until he was completely dissolved.

As the light finally began to recede from Zero's vision, he realized that he was, in fact, actually standing in the center of his room with his deactivated beam sabre gripped firmly in his palms. Where the dark man had stood before, now glowed a red-rimmed gash through the corner of his bookshelf, as well as tattered portions of novels obviously caught by Zero's blade. A hiss sounded to the warrior's right and Zero turned to see X standing in the doorway once more, wide-eyed and out of breath.

"Zero, what's going on? I heard you screaming all the way in my quarters, so I bolted out the door and..."

X's sentence faded off into silence as his eyes locked onto the damage done to Zero's precious books.

"Zero, what hapenned to your shelf?" X finally asked, cautiously stepping towards his partner.

Zero slowly reconnected the beam sabre's handle to its charger on his back and made his way to the large gash, feeling the heat still radiating off the red-hot steel. He grasped a few drops of the liquified metal between his fore finger and thumb, allowing the pain to remind him that he was back in reality.

X gently rested his palm upon Zero's shoulder, keeping his line of sight towards the floor.

"He came back, didn't he? The dark man?"

Zero silently nodded, flicking away the now dry pellet of steel. X continued to question Zero, hoping for him to open up.

"Did you beat him this time?"

The warrior extended an open plam towards the bookshelf, the heat still there but not as strong.

"I struck him down, but he'll be back. He always comes back."

Zero's voice was dark, about as solumn as X had ever heard it. The blue reploid stepped forward, gently squeezing Zero's shoulder. The warrior's shoulder plating was obviously far too strong to react to a small nudge, but Zero felt the action none the less, and it triggered something within him. Suddenly the wounds that the dark man's words had inflicted upon Zero's soul broke wide open and a thin stream of clear, semi-viscous liquid began to roll down each of Zero's cheeks, apparently originating from corners in his eyes. Within many reploids' optic cavities are small containers of a checmical that coats itself across a reploid's eyes every few days since some have a habit of not blinking enough. Some time during Zero's dream-state ordeal, he had apparently ruptured both of these containers.

Before X stood a reploid so emotionally wracked that he could barely stand on his own feet, tears streaming down his face. The sight was so far from what X knew of his friend, it bordered upon surreal. He had no idea how to react in any way other than with silent disbelief. Zero staggered forward, almost zombie-like in movement. X was having difficulty resisting the urge to back away. He had no idea whether the Zero underneath that now-shattered cool exterior was a psychotic killer, a lonely child, or a soulless husk. When the crimson reploid spoke, his voice was whispy and broken. It sounded to X as a sobbing ghost would.

"I'm not his son... I'm not a hero... I'm nothing more than a murderer with a quick swing!"

X couldn't help but stare, open-mouthed, at his long-time partner. He had fought along-side the red warrior in front of him for many years, and yet X was just now seeing the true essence of Zero. The blue reploid found Zero's current state weak, unusually emotional, and... beautiful. It was the heart of a soldier who had fought for years without anyone to really share his true self with. Right then, right there, X felt that his entire purpose was to be that person. He slowly stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around the tearful reploid. At first Zero resisted with what little strength he had left, but after a few seconds he finally dropped his head upon X's shoulder and sobbed loudly, tightly hugging his new support. X reached around and flipped a tiny latch on the inside of Zero's helmet, releasing its automatic air seal and gently tossed it upon the near-by bed, Zero's hair now falling loose.

The blue reploid then began gently stroking the back of Zero's head, never having realized just how soft the hunter's blonde tresses were until now. Despite how thick the hair was, X could only describe it as "angellic" as he ran several strands between his fingers. A muffled sob drew X's attention away from the hair and back towards its owner. He couldn't help but smile sympathetically as Zero's tears gently rolled down the front of X's shoulder armor, collecting at the bottom edge and eventually falling to the cold floor in large drops.

X wasn't sure what to do, noting with dismay that his embracing Zero had done little to fight his tears. X needed to do something more, something that could heal all of Zero's wounds in one swift stroke. The blue soldier frantically rummaged through his memory of human emotions and reactions, searching desperately for the means to mend Zero's soul.

And then he found it. X had seen many humans do it before, and even a few reploids. X specifically remembered seeing Zero perform the act to Iris when the female reploid was still alive, and it had intruiged him. Apparently, Iris's brother had made some type of military decision that had resulted in about a dozen civilian casualties, and Iris had come running to Zero for support. That one action had pulled the girl straight out of the dephs of sadness in an instant.

X placed his hand beneath Zero's chin and gently lifted his head up, taking a moment to stare into the warrior's limitless blue eyes before leaning forward, tilting his head, and softly connecting Zero's lips with his own.

Zero felt X's lips wrapping around his, but the touch was all that he experienced, nothing emotional. He was too confused, essentially too lost within his own mind, to even percieve feelings such as love and compassion, much less respond to them. His will was so shattered that, had X attempted to perform a cyber-psychologic cross-in, the Reploid equivalent of intercourse, Zero wouldn't have even resisted.

When X noticed that Zero was neither responding to the kiss, nor exerting any further awareness, he softly pulled away. Though dissapointed that the attempt at healing his partner's heart had failed, X was no less determined than he had been when he first saw Zero psychologically collapse. He begun to once again scour his memory banks for any possible remedies, but was cut short as the reploid before him shifted ever-so-slightly in position. X turned his gaze toward Zero, only to be met by his partner's unnaturaly blue eyes. From what he could read from Zero's gaze, his attempt had been close, but just a bit too much. Zero didn't need a lover, just someone to say those few magic words.

"Zero?"

The red hunter's eyes seemed to shift in focus, something that X took as a sign that he was listening.

"You're not a murderer. To murder is to kill without higher purpose." X became a few degrees more comfortable as he shifted into a field he was far more experienced in. "Everytime you destory a Maverick, you save tens, hundreds, sometimes even thousands of lives. These lives, in turn, then take extra precaution not to become victims of the virus they bore witness to."

X could tell that his wrods were impacting Zero, noting the haze of unconsciousness slowly beginning to lift. He had to take advantage of his position and push further.

"I promise that whatever sins you may have committed before you awoke in that capsule, you have more than atoned for with the personal sacrifices you make on a daily basis to protect those around you."

With this shot, the color in Zero's eyes seemed to collapse in on itself, then slowly returned to their natural state. X knew he was almost there. He took a step forward, gently wrapping his arms around the red hunter and pulling him close. X rested his head upon Zero's shoulder and spoke once more, whispering at a nearly inaudible tone.

"Had you not sacrificed yourself to destroy Vile's combat armor... I guarantee I wouldn't be here."

X could practically feel Zero's mind awakening, hauling itself out from the chasm it had fell into. The process took several minutes, during which X did nothing but hold his partner gently against himself, hoping that what emerged would be the Zero he had known most of his conscious life.

"Th-..."

The blue reploid was just barely aple to pick up the syllable, still unsure which Zero he was holding.

"Than-... thanks."

X felt his heart leap into his throat as his prayers came to pass, grasping Zero firmly and rocking back and forth. "Just repaying the debt."

_End._


End file.
